Gadget geeks, rejoice — Motorola has begun sales of the next generation model of its ultra-slim Razr cell phone in Korea ahead of a global launch next month. Said Motorola Korea Inc., “We’re releasing our new phone in the Korean market first in recognition of tech-savvy and fashion-aware Korean consumers.” [HT to reader]
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The below FT article covers the current problems of Motorola:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/598664.....10621.html
I played with Apple iPhone at an Apple store today, and it was pretty awesome. I don’t think iPhone will be released in South Korea anytime soon because Apple made an exclusive 5-year contract with AT&T Wireless (former Cingular), which is a GSM carrier, and, therefore, Apple is unlikely to manufacture CDMA iPhones only for the Korean CDMA market. BTW, iPhone uses Samsung’s CPU (ARM chip), graphic chip, and flash memory (and, I believe, its LCD panel as well).
I didn’t mention the Chinese and Latin American CDMA markets because I’m not sure about their 2.5G data service that iPhone uses.
Since when has British-founded and based ARM Limited been a subsidiary of Samsung?
I suspect the Korean contribution to the iPhone’s value-added is just as marginal as that Korean firms bring to the iPod.
The $299 iPod in the NYT article is a hard disk based iPod, which uses the PortalPlayer CPU. Samsung CPUs are replacing PortalPlayer CPUs, and the iPhone uses the Samsung ARM CPU (Samsung is one of the ARM license holders). The iPod Nano and Shuffle are based on flash memory, and flash memory will replace hard disk drive ultimately (Apple is known to have developed flash memory iPods because of Samsung’s persuasion).
http://arstechnica.com/journal...../1/10/6569
http://www.appleinsider.com/ar.....phone.html
http://www.eetimes.com/news/se.....=186701236
http://www.businessweek.com/te....._tc024.htm
Samsung may be an ARM-licensee from whom Apple is sourcing parts, but that in itself doesn’t suggest that its contribution to the value-added in the iPhone is of any real significance, as intellectual property is where the real money is, not fabbing someone else’s chip designs alongside so many other outfits in East Asia. Much the same hold true of the flash, DRAM and LCD businesses - for all the manufacturing prowess of Korean firms, they are not as yet innovators in the way that Apple and Intel are, let alone the likes of Canon, Toshiba, etc.
OFF-TOPIC: 2006 Patent recipient ranking by organizations in the U.S. (1-30):
INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION 3621
SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD. 2451
CANON KABUSHIKI KAISHA 2366
MATSUSHITA ELECTRIC INDUSTRIAL CO., LTD. 2229
HEWLETT-PACKARD DEVELOPMENT COMPANY, L.P. 2099
INTEL CORPORATION 1959
SONY CORPORATION 1771
HITACHI, LTD 1732
TOSHIBA CORPORATION 1672
MICRON TECHNOLOGY, INC. 1610
FUJITSU LIMITED 1487
MICROSOFT CORPORATION 1463
SEIKO EPSON CORPORATION 1200
GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY 1051
FUJI PHOTO FILM CO., LTD 906
KONINKLIJKE PHILIPS ELECTRONICS N.V. 896
INFINEON TECHNOLOGIES AG 890
TEXAS INSTRUMENTS, INCORPORATED 880
SIEMENS AKTIENGESELLSCHAFT 854
HONDA GIKEN KOGYO KABUSHIKI KAISHA (HONDA MOTOR CO., LTD.) 778
SUN MICROSYSTEMS, INC. 776
DENSO CORPORATION 732
NEC CORPORATION 728
LG ELECTRONICS INC. 694
RICOH COMPANY, LTD. 693
EASTMAN KODAK COMPANY 688
SHARP KABUSHIKI KAISHA (SHARP CORPORATION) 665
BROADCOM CORPORATION 660
CISCO TECHNOLOGY, INC. 649
ROBERT BOSCH GMBH 646
Wow, Korea has all of *2* companies on your list of 30 companies (why 30 in particular, I wonder, instead of 20 or 50?) Quite apart from the overwhelming domination of American and Japanese companies on same list, do you really think I’ll be overwhelmed by this?
Here’s news for you: as someone who has some personal familiarity with the US patent system, I’m among the last persons on Earth to be bowled over by numbers like yours which are based on the assumption that all patents are of equal value: if you weren’t busy defending Korea’s honor, the very fact that Microsoft is on your list while Apple and Google are not would have told you something: “Microsoft” and “innovation” in the same sentence is oxymoronic. Doesn’t the absence of biotech and pharmaceutical companies from said list set bells ringing for you at all?
Furthermore, it’s a safe bet that the main reason Samsung is currently number two on that list has nothing to do with the company being a beehive of innovation, and everything to do with a latecomer to the IP game trying to catch up in building its own defensive patent war-chest by applying for as many of the usual minute variations on old themes that pass for most of the patentable claims made by large IT companies.
It isn’t impossible that Samsung may one day become a hive of innovation - though if Korea produces any such companies I doubt they’ll be the gigantic Chaebols - but only ignorance of the facts or misguided nationalist pride could get anyone trying to argue that the reality is other than this: Korean firms are still not at the top tier of the food chain, which is creating the intellectual property others license and build upon, while the most prominent technology successes of its biggest firms has mostly been in commoditized sectors like making DVDs, LCDs, DRAM chips and so forth. Samsung makes Blu-ray players, sure, but based on designs by Sony, RISC processors based on designs by Arm Limited (which it does on behalf of a design by Apple), etc.
I just wanted to post some relevant facts, which could be interesting for a few readers, and your unexpected comments are interesting. Any insightful comment on this?:
http://japan.seekingalpha.com/article/5011
I’m a researcher (the kind of people responsible for coming up with IP for patents) at the large Korean chaebol that has been mentioned above. Abiola is dead on the money. My company is very quick to patent any new idea or variation of an old theme at the drop of a hat, regardless of it’s potential value. Most are not valuable, but such a strategy is smart. As a result, FQ’s numbers don’t matter, and in this debate certainly are not “relevant facts,” only misleading stats. While Sony has been on the slide of late, and while the financial numbers have shown the large Korean electronics chaebol to be winning the battle, it is well acknowledged even inside my company that Japanese companies have a strong edge in technological know-how, IP, and ability to create–the true fundamentals of tech companies.
As seen by their ascents, Korean tech companies have their strong points, but they are only recent and will be short-lived unless the companies can become more innovative, are willing to continue to dump money into investment, personnel, and encouraging creativity. Luckily, management realizes this, and is changing the way things are done to adapt, 빨리빨리-like.
I could go on and on about this, but I’d just be repeating everything that the Flagless One said.
“in this debate”
cmm, actually there was no debate.
When I said “relevant facts,” I meant the use of Samsung parts in the iPhone. The facts were relevant because the parts including CPU are used in iPhone, and these facts were just SIMPLY interesting for me. I have not said that those parts add significant value to the iPhone. The reason I posted #4 is because the part of the NYT article that Abiola used in #3 is about the monetary value of the part, which was only about hard disk-based iPod. Also, while expressions such as “Samsung ARM CPU” is commonly used (like “Intel ARM chip” and “Phillips ARM chip” (Intel and Phillips are two of those who license ARM technology)), Abiola asked me, “Since when has British-founded and based ARM Limited been a subsidiary of Samsung?,” for a reason that I don’t know. ARM Ltd. is well known not to sell chips, but license technology to more than a dozen of big companies. In iPhone, OS X and multi-touch interface are most important for me. I purchased my first Mac last year paying almost US$3,000 because I wanted to use OS X, not a Mac hardware. Abiola was reaction was unexpected and, honestly, funny for me: he used words “ignorance,” “misguided national pride,” etc. just because I’m a Korean (native), although I simply provided some facts - like unconditional reflex. The reason I posted #6 was to observe how he would react again. Patent numbers do not say much, indeed. I despise, and even hate, Microsoft and do not even compare it with Apple. As one of the newcomers, Abiola’s reaction was an interesting experience for me. There will likely to be another response. I don’t really care, however. I don’t have a computer science background and am just a gadget/computer geek and lawyer, BTW.